Trump gives commencement address at University of Alabama

President Donald Trump lobbed a ding toward Harvard University in his speech to University of Alabama graduates, pointing to the billions of dollars in federal research funding to the Ivy League school that remains frozen amid an ongoing lawsuit against the White House.

“Graduates of the Alabama Class of 2025 … the next chapter of the American story will not be written by the Harvard Crimson,” Trump said. “It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide.”

“I thought that was rather clever,” Trump added. “If you look at what’s going on, you know, they get their $5 billion a year. That is not going to be so forthcoming.”

Hours after a White House event commemorating a national day of prayer, President Donald Trump returned to the subject of religion, telling University of Alabama graduates: “We believe in freedom and family. God and country.”

“We cherish our Constitution, we Revere our Bible, and we salute our great American flag,” he said. “We honor our police.”

The president talked about the “internet people” like Elon Musk and other tech moguls and businessmen. “They all hated me in my first term,” Donald Trump said. “And now they’re kissing my ass”

“It’s true,” he added. “It’s amazing. It’s nicer this way now.”

Trump also grew nostalgic during his remarks, talking about taking risks as a young businessman and warmly reminiscing about his father. And the man who often ridiculed Joe Biden about his age had a different way of putting it before this crowd of young graduates: “I’d pay a lot of money to have your age.”

President Donald Trump seems to be in a conciliatory mood, even dropping some of his harsh admonishments of the news media. He said he’s not sure he likes journalism majors but then said he was kidding.

“We need a great and free press. We need a brilliant press. They’re like a watch keeper. They’re very important,” he said, encouraging them to go into the industry and “help save the country.”

“The ratings, the approval numbers of the media are so low,” he said. “We need those ratings to be 100 percent. We have to be able to trust our media. They say you have to have that.”

President Donald Trump told graduates of the University of Alabama that they were among the first to graduate into the “golden age of America,” his title for what he says will be a new national renaissance in his second term.

President Donald Trump, while speaking to University of Alabama graduates, said that federal judges are “interfering” with his administration’s deportation efforts.

“Judges are interfering, supposedly based on due process. But how can you give due process to people who came into our country illegally?” Trump said. “They want to give them due process.”

Former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, winner of seven national championships, introduced President Donald Trump on Thursday evening for a commencement address to the university.

“You know, it’s certainly an honor for me to be here and participate in this historic event, to be able to introduce President Trump, to address the graduates, you know, here today,” Saban said. “But I got to be honest with you, you know, I feel like I’m the warmup band for the Rolling Stones.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama on Thursday night is Trump Country, with MAGA hats filling the arena, women in stickers that read “Roll Trump Roll,” and men in Trump’s characteristic blue suit and long red tie.

The scoreboard in the arena reads 45 and 47, to mark Trump’s two non-consecutive terms.

In the concourse there is a large sign meant to pump up fans here for collegiate sports events, but is also fitting for Trump’s first 100 days: “Be the chaos.”

Gender transition care for transgender children and teens lacks evidence of benefits and poses risks, according to a new report released Thursday by the Trump administration that medical experts described as poor quality research that threatens access to care.

The report promoted psychotherapy as a “noninvasive” alternative, drawing fierce pushback from LGBTQ+ advocates who said the proposal amounted to “conversion therapy.”

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In a rare public rebuke from former members of the judiciary, 20 former federal judges are forming a coalition to “defend the rule of law” and “protect the independence of the judiciary,” they said in an open letter Thursday.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, widely seen as a leading contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, said on The View on Thursday that he’s not planning on running for president in the next election cycle.

The governor joined the show to discuss the Trump administration’s federal cuts and policies impacting his state, the deportation of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia and speculation around his rising star power in the Democratic Party.

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday pushed back on a federal judge’s recent ruling that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority by invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.

“The judge doesn’t make that determination, whether the Alien Enemies Act can be deployed. I think the president of the United States is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News.

The administration believes the Supreme Court “is going to recognize that immigration enforcement is a core function of the president,” Vance said.

Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s job “is safe” following Michael Waltz’s reassignment from his role as national security adviser to United Nations ambassador nominee.

Waltz unwittingly included The Atlantic magazine’s top editor in a Signal group used by numerous senior administration officials, including Vance and Hegseth, to coordinate strikes in Yemen. In the chat, Hegseth shared sensitive information that former defense officials have assessed typically would be highly classified.

Vance, speaking to Bret Baier, also denied that Waltz’s reassignment was a direct result of the Signal chat controversy.

The Senate voted Thursday to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency rule limiting the seven most hazardous air pollutants emitted by chemical plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities, reversing one of President Joe Biden’s major environmental regulations.

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More than 1,100 people have been arrested in Florida over the last week as part of a sweeping immigration operation involving state and federal law enforcement agents, Department of Homeland Security officials and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on Thursday.

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Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) criticized the U.S. DOGE Service’s steep cuts to AmeriCorps in a Washington Post op-ed Thursday, joining the outcry from Democrats and some Republicans over the slashing of the community service agency.

President Donald Trump will be interviewed Sunday by “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, the show announced in a social media post on Thursday.

The announcement comes as Trump extends his media blitz highlighting his 100th day in office, even as he continues attacking reporters for their coverage of him.

Newly ousted national security adviser Michael Waltz, who came under scrutiny for his usage of the messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, was photographed at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, appearing to use a modified Signal app to conduct official business with Cabinet members and other top Trump administration officials.

Four Senate Democrats are trying to mandate the State Department to produce a report on human rights abuses in El Salvador, where the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrants.

President Donald Trump on Thursday reimposed secondary sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and exports, the latest punitive measure that comes amid nascent diplomatic talks between the two countries over Iran’s nuclear program. In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump said that “any country or person who buys ANY AMOUNT of OIL or PETROCHEMICALS from Iran will be subject to, immediately, Secondary Sanctions. They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form.”

From Antarctic research stations to telescopes high in the Andes to research submarines miles below the waves — and in laboratories and classrooms across the United States — the fingerprint of the National Science Foundation is vast and consequential. The 75-year-old government agency has one function: keep the U.S. science enterprise at the leading edge. In the last two weeks, however, the $9 billion agency, which exists entirely to fund science researchers, projects and facilities outside its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters, hit reverse on its main mission.

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President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was tapping his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In doing so, Trump confirmed earlier reports, including from The Washington Post, that he was preparing to replace Waltz in a major shake-up of his foreign policy team.

A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled Thursday that the president exceeded his authority by invoking the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants, dealing a blow to the administration’s deportation efforts and permanently barring such removals in South Texas.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. rejected President Donald Trump’s declarations that the United States was being invaded by a Venezuelan gang to justify using the act to deport migrants without a hearing.

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Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to visit Iowa later this month, a trip that will probably stir continuing speculation about his 2028 presidential ambitions.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order at a National Day of Prayer event at the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, establishing a presidential commission on religious liberty.

The commission will be chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who Trump said came up with the idea for the group.

Other members Trump said will be part of the commission include:

“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy,” Schumer told reporters Thursday. “They should be firing Hegseth.”

More than 100 days into his second term, President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was “rigged.”

“We won the second time. Everybody knows it,” Trump declared baselessly Thursday at a White House event for the National Day of Prayer, referring to 2020. “But we made it too big to rig the third time.”

Later in the event, Trump claimed Hamas would not have attacked Israel in October 2023 if he had been president.

“Your son would be home,” Trump said to the parents of Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage taken by Hamas.

President Donald Trump promised again Thursday to protect Medicaid, following a White House meeting about his agenda with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other key lawmakers.

In doing so, Trump accused Democrats of wanting to “destroy” Medicaid, without providing clear evidence. His claim came even though Republicans in Congress have laid the groundwork for potential deep cuts to the program as they look to pay for Trump’s legislative priorities.

Shortly after news broke that President Donald Trump plans to oust national security adviser Michael Waltz over a leaked Signal chat, Trump went out of his way to highlight the administration officials who are still in his good graces.

“Marco Rubio. Unbelievable. Unbelievable, Marco. When I have a problem, I call up Marco,” he said of the secretary of state at a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden. “He gets it solved.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (New York) said Thursday in a floor speech that Senate Republicans who vote to advance Frank Bisignano, President Donald Trump’s pick to run the Social Security Administration, are “voting yes to ax Social Security.”

The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday to advance the nomination of Bisignano, who would take over an agency in crisis after being subject to cuts by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.

President Donald Trump opened his remarks at a National Day of Prayer event in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday by praising House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as “a man of incredible faith” who has done “an incredible job.”

“We’re working very hard on a great big beautiful bill … and we’re trying to come up with a name,” the president said, referring to his tax, border security, energy and defense bill. “And I said, ‘Why don’t we just call it the great big beautiful bill?’ … So we’re going to probably do that because everyone knows what it means.”

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have brought more drama and upheaval to the federal government and the economy than any president’s in modern history. Senior national political correspondent Naftali Bendavid, White House reporter Natalie Allison and White House bureau chief Matt Viser will answer your questions about the period during a live chat at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Send in your questions here. They may be edited for accuracy and clarity.

President Donald Trump is expected to speak shortly at an event in the Rose Garden at the White House marking the National Day of Prayer.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Thursday that Trump would use the gathering to sign an executive order establishing a “religious liberty commission.”

President Donald Trump plans to replace national security adviser Michael Waltz, according to a current and former U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a personnel move that has not been announced.

Waltz infuriated Trump after he mistakenly included a journalist on a Signal group chat discussing highly sensitive attack plans against Houthi militants.

The House voted Thursday to block California from enforcing a rule that would ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035.

Lawmakers voted 246-164 to pass a resolution targeting the rule, which ranks as one of the nation’s most ambitious policies aimed at combating climate change and promoting electric vehicles. However, it is unclear whether the Senate will follow suit and send the measure to President Donald Trump’s desk.

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Former president Joe Biden is set to give his first major interview since leaving office in January.

Biden and former first lady Jill Biden will be interviewed May 8 on ABC’s “The View,” according to the network. The interview will be live and in studio.

Joe Biden has slowly started to reemerge in the national spotlight, giving a speech last month in Chicago focused on Social Security.

PHOENIX — For 30 years, no one questioned Danny Dobosz’s citizenship when the lifelong Republican cast his ballot.

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In a lengthy rant Thursday, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, railed against medical treatments for transgender children and repeatedly claimed that the Trump administration was battling a “cancerous, communist, woke culture” that he blamed the Biden administration for perpetuating.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller railed against the due process rights afforded to undocumented immigrants by the Biden administration, telling reporters that it resulted in the kidnapping and raping of American citizens.

Miller cited the case of two migrants who are accused of raping and murdering a young girl. He said the two were members of the Tren de Aragua gang apprehended by the Border Patrol and then released with ankle monitors.

Miller accused the media of “trying to force innocent Americans to have these people as their neighbors.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the Trump administration was not worried about former vice president Kamala Harris’s reemergence to criticize President Donald Trump.

“We encourage Kamala Harris to continue going out and … doing speaking engagements,” Leavitt said during a news briefing.

Leavitt was joined by Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, who was less lighthearted in his response. He said the “only thing Americans want to hear from Kamala Harris is an apology for joining Joe Biden” in his immigration policies.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller accused universities and colleges on Thursday of being “in plain and direct violation of a Supreme Court’s ruling” for having race-conscious admissions programs, which the court had ruled violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Thursday echoed Secretary of State Marco Rubio in declining to say whether the Trump administration has talked to El Salvador about returning Kilmar Abrego García, the Maryland man mistakenly deported there.

“This administration is not going to publicly discuss the inside details of our foreign policy in negotiations with a foreign country,” Miller said during a news briefing.

Rubio gave a similar response Wednesday, saying he “would never tell” the media — or a judge — about such talks. The Supreme Court has asked the administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s briefing room appearance on Thursday quickly took on a dark, even apocalyptic tone.

His opening remarks warned of hospitals that use “taxpayer dollars to perform chemical castration and sexual mutilation of children.” He said President Joe Biden “promoted prison rape by putting men into female prisons” and that schoolgirls would be “sexually assaulted, because school districts have allowed men into women’s and girls’ private spaces.”

Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff to President Donald Trump, insisted Thursday that car costs will not go up as automakers work to ramp up U.S. manufacturing amid Trump’s tariffs. That’s despite the fact that many economists expect consumers to pay more for now.

“No, not on cars, they won’t,” Miller said during a White House news briefing. “There’s now a massive economic incentive for automobile producers to expand production in the United States. And whatever they make here, there will be no tariff.”

New filings for unemployment benefits jumped last week, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday morning, amid fears of a souring economy.

The claims rose to 241,000, an increase of 18,000 — the largest jump since mid-February. The spike did not come from layoffs in the federal government.

Continuing claims rose to 1.9 million.

The White House is holding another morning press briefing to mark President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. This one was billed as about “restoring common sense.”

Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told reporters the administration is working to root out “communist woke DEI strangulation.”

As the legal battle continues over the fate of Kilmar Abrego García, President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited tattoos on the mistakenly deported man’s knuckles as proof that he is an MS-13 gang member and should not be returned from El Salvador.

But several law enforcement officials and researchers who study the transnational gang say the tattoos on Abrego García’s left hand — a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull — do not show definitive evidence of any gang affiliation.

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Elon Musk sat down in the Roosevelt Room late Wednesday afternoon with a gathering of journalists and, chuckling at something on his iPhone, asked if anyone had any good jokes.

Over an hour, he revealed that, during his 100 days working with the Trump administration, he had slept more than once in the Lincoln Bedroom. He had eaten a tub full of caramel Häagen-Dazs ice cream. He also compared himself to the Buddha.

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When times get tough, President Donald Trump resorts to a maneuver that we call the Trump bait-and-switch. He insists that he has long warned about a problem — when he hadn’t. Or he will claim that a problem is not his, even though he took credit when things were good before.

At the 100-day mark of his second term, Trump faces plunging polls, sagging economic numbers and skittish securities markets — mainly because of his tariff policy. So let’s see how he’s trying to spin it.

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China has signaled that it is becoming more open to engaging in trade negotiations with the Trump administration, according to two blogs closely associated with China’s state apparatus, even as Beijing maintains a defiant stance in the trade war.

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President Donald Trump has spent this week claiming that his first 100 days have brought unparalleled economic opportunity in the face of clear data to the contrary. It is not a new strategy for a president who has publicly espoused the mantra of never admitting defeat.

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Pete Hegseth’s 100-day tenure as defense secretary has brought an unceremonious end to the careers of numerous top military officers — but it has also created unexpected avenues for advancement, including for one Marine who has thrown his lot in with the controversial Pentagon chief.

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President Donald Trump Trump is scheduled to speak at the University of Alabama’s commencement on Thursday night.

The university’s student Democrats have condemned Trump’s visit, saying it was making the school a “backdrop for MAGA propaganda.” Alabama College Democrats are organizing a counterrally with Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who captured liberal hearts in his unsuccessful 2018 Senate race against Ted Cruz, and former Democratic senator Doug Jones.

The White House on Wednesday launched a “White House Wire” section on the official whitehouse.gov site, featuring favorable coverage and design similarities to another popular news aggregation website founded by a former ally of President Donald Trump.

According to a White House official, WH Wire is “a one-stop shop for all news related to the Trump administration’s efforts to provide transparency and institute policies that put America first.”

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to encourage more births. His tariffs could be an obstacle.

Car seats, strollers and other essential items for new families are among the items impacted by Trump’s trade war with China. The disquiet in the industry has led expecting families to stock up on items and the owners of baby stores to worry about their future, while companies and trade associations feverishly lobby the Republican administration for an exemption.

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Elon Musk arrived at the White House prepared to take a chainsaw to the federal government, promising to slash $2 trillion in spending.

A little more than 100 days later, the world’s richest man is retreating from Washington far short of that goal after an often painful education in the machinations of the U.S. government.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Former vice president Kamala Harris marked President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office by condemning his “reckless” tariffs, “unconstitutional demands” and efforts to stoke a climate of fear to silence dissenters.

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KYIV — The United States and Ukraine have signed a deal to establish joint investment in Ukraine’s mineral wealth, oil, gas and other natural resources, officials said Wednesday, in a move that would fulfill a key White House request and give Kyiv a degree of much-desired U.S. backing.

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